


The Green Eyes of Winter

by samzillastomps



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, Young Love, can't tell if Zevran is ok or not yet, they're both virgins who can't drive tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 19:24:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samzillastomps/pseuds/samzillastomps
Summary: Alistair's had to wrestle with quite a few nasty things since setting off with Eilwyn Amell in order to rally together the armies of Ferelden. There was that one ogre that beat both him and her with a bear corpse. And then there were the werewolves most recently, not even a fortnight ago. Oh, and while we're at it, the living trees- not that all trees aren't alive, really, but these either talked to you, hit you, or both. Still, despite all of the difficulties so far, there is still one monster he's having trouble wrestling with: an emotion that a certain suave elf seems to trigger whenever he compliments Eilwyn a bit too sleekly.No matter. There's no cause for alarm. It's probably all in Alistair's head anyway....Right?---A short one-shot from Alistair's POV to go along with my longfic DD&D <3I needed some help getting back into the headspaces of the story, and this will hopefully do the trick!





	The Green Eyes of Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dignity, Devotion, and Darkspawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14101194) by [samzillastomps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samzillastomps/pseuds/samzillastomps). 

The cold air was bracing enough that when Alistair inhaled, it finally awakened him fully. Funny. Back in the Grey Wardens, he was usually the last to want to get up and out of his bedroll. He’d gripe, complain with the rest of the groaners, and never been one to rise silently out of necessity. It had been fun, to bemoan how early the hour and how boring the watch.

_ Fun, and foolish. _

He wrapped his cloak tighter about his person, his leather armor creaking against itself as he did so. He’d had to change quite a bit since then. Looking into the meager fire pit that Wynne and Leliana had stoked during their watch before him, he found he was reminiscing a lot more than usual. He used to avoid dwelling on the past whenever possible, and now look at him.

_ Just feels different, somehow. _

_ I feel different. _

He glanced back to the collective tent they'd erected in the wake of the surprise snowstorm that had overtaken them just as they exited the Brecilian. Eilwyn had asked him for a few minutes longer to sleep, and he didn’t have the heart to say no to such a plea. On top of that, the storm had died down, offering a deafening silence through which he could hear every branch snap, every footfall. Alone out here, in the perfect quiet, surrounded by dry, powdery snow and no other living being, Alistair found that solitude seemed to suit him just fine at the moment. In fact, he found himself thinking back to who he was before he and Eilwyn Amell had been thrust together as they had.

Back when he was a new recruit, it had all seemed so natural. He was never alone. There had always been someone to help him do something. Maybe not willingly, but enough Wardens had been around that even the most mundane of tasks was something he could enlist _ someone _ to help him with. Just to have the company, if not the conversation.

He’d very rarely been truly by himself in the Wardens. After a childhood of repeated solitude, it had been a desperate and disappointing reprieve when he’d been sent to become a Templar. Finally, when he’d been given the chance to become a Warden, he'd felt as if he was a part of something, and the doubts and fears and grief settled themselves, content to hide behind jokes and evasion. Alistair realized now, as he breathed onto his gloves to melt off the frost from the leather knuckles, that he’d latched onto the sense of belonging almost unhealthily. He’d dug his claws into that feeling of family, defined himself by the idea that he was not in charge. That someone would always be around to decide, to lead, to drive him forward.

So much so that it had almost wrecked him when he’d lost everyone.

Alistair looked up to the stars as tufts of wispy clouds passed steadily by, the moon reflecting from the snow and illuminating everything in a soft periwinkle gray now that his eyes had adjusted.

_ Are they up there, watching us? _

_ Do they know we’ve made progress? _

_ Can they see how wonderful a leader Eilwyn’s become? _

_ Are they proud of me? _

A sting in the corner of his eye, small, easy enough to blink away. He was getting better at that too, the not-crying when he thought of his fellow Wardens.

It had almost been a year, and he had taken his time.

The pain was always there, jagged like a tumor of crystal within the soft parts of his innards, but he was learning to accept the hurt and let it flow out of him once it coursed inward. He no longer dwelled in it.

_ I suppose I have her to thank for that too. _

Alistair thought back to the Eilwyn he’d met a year ago. To how frightened she’d looked, and how he’d wanted very badly to joke about it. But he’d seen that she very much would have been unable to take it as a joke. At the time, he’d noted the mage robes, the frightened wringing of her hands, the way she did not pull her arms behind herself for fear of arousing suspicion. At all times, her eyes were downcast and her mouth polite, her fingers visible and unclenched. She must have had some strict Templars in Kinloch, he’d surmised, and had made it a point of taking those nervous hands into his own. He'd made a point of showing her that her fingers were no more of a threat to him than she wanted them to be. He'd touched her skin and a miracle had happened.

She’d laughed for him.

Even now, alone in the snow all these months later, just the memory of how she’d laughed at his stupid hand game brought a sense of intense pride to Alistair’s core. He'd let her win of course, obviously, and it had cheered her enough to allow her to focus on the Joining. He could tell even then that she was going to be a great Warden.

When everything turned to shit, before it was _utter_ shit, instead of running frightened she had followed him. He'd felt her mana run through his every sense like a rush of cool water as they climbed to light the fire, had not seen her stumble. He'd have given his life to protect her even then, because he knew she was ready to die for him as well. A sense of duty, they'd shared. He hadn't expected her to have it so early after Joining, but she'd embodied it fiercely and brightly.

And then, she’d surprised everyone. She’d taken up the mantle he thought he’d be destined to bear alone and had walked alongside him, deciding and driving and leading.

_ I wonder if she knows the magnitude of what she’s done. _

_ I wonder if she knows of the songs they'll sing of her. _

_ Maybe she’s like me, taking it a day at a time, ignoring what’s to come. Trying not to think about the ones who don't like us, or the ones we couldn't save. Trying to pretend like we've got a future beyond the Archdemon. _

_ But can I do that forever? Can either of us? _

She had told him she loved him for the first time a little over a month ago. Against a tree outside of the Dalish camp, she'd said the words so easily. He'd known, or rather hoped, for a while, yet it was something altogether remarkable to hear someone express it out loud.

_And then she offered herself to me._

_Is that a thing people say? Offer to? Like a slab of steak, _ _"here you are, lad, this is what's on offer"?_

_Get it together, Alistair, you're rambling. And not even aloud._

His thoughts wandered, as they so often did nowadays, to their tentative romance on the cliff the other night. Snowflakes had fallen around the barrier she'd cast, their own sighs and gasps echoing back to them as they touched all of the places they longed to touch. Respectful of his wishes not to go too far, she'd lain beside him fully exposed. Naked, waiting, watching. Her sharp eyes had taken him in, and Maker had he come close to breaking. But on a cliff? He was happy they'd stopped when they had; their brief foray, as pleasurable as it had been, had also managed to leave a sizable scratch along his elbow from where he'd shifted abruptly and scraped himself up.

Could you imagine if they'd tried to do more? It would have been a disaster.

And it hadn't been. It hadn't been anything less than heavenly, scrapes and all included. In fact, even now Alistair's mind unraveled the precious memory of their skin on one another’s skin, of the way her body curved at the waist when she twisted on her side, of how her hair had fallen over her breasts as her hands worked his-

_ Maker’s breath, stop. _

_ You can’t get hard on watch. _

_ Ignore that last part, go back to thinking of her dignity. _

As if the universe was agreeing with him, the tent flap behind him shuffled open. He heard a murmur from a voice other than Eilwyn’s, and then the pressured sound of snow packing underneath of careful footfalls. Not quite a crunch, something softer.

“Good morning, Alistair. I see you too are an 'eager riser', as they say,” Zevran whispered, his breath fogging before him as he stood at Alistair’s side. “Tell me. Even as a Fereldan, do you ever get used to such a view?”

Alistair felt himself unfairly bristle. He’d been doing that a lot lately, with absolutely no justification that he could figure out. There was a tension that he didn’t want to address whenever the elf spoke to him, some difficult pressure he didn’t want to think about. Rather than be rude, however, he sought to find a way to reply. The conversation could be welcome.

“You mean the snow?” Alistair forced himself to breathe back.

As he spoke he realized that the Antivan at his side most likely never had to deal with it in such droves as this. That is, if he’d had to deal with it at all. Alistair turned back to the silent scenery before them, feeling more than an ounce of shame wriggle down in his gut at his initial reaction. He cleared his throat, chancing a glance at the elf, and noted with some relief that Zevran was tightening his bracers and not looking particularly slighted. The elf, as if sensing Alistair's gaze, looked up and gave a pert little nod.

“No, now that you mention it,” Alistair sighed. “Every time it snows, I’m back to feeling like a kid. With my nose pressed against the glass, wanting to go out and make a bunch of snow buddies-”

He cut himself off.

No need to swing to the other end of the spectrum so easily. He didn’t necessarily want to be friends with the elf, at least not how Eilwyn seemed intent on being.

Oh. There it was again. That telltale bristle.

“The city I grew up in, there was rarely snow. If it did snow, it was only a fine dusting. None of this fluff. The sheer amount is staggering, how do you manage to do anything come winter?”

Alistair chuckled despite himself.

“We usually stay in bed where it’s warm, if we can afford to.”

“Ah,” Zevran tapped the side of his nose and then pointed at Alistair, as if they shared something of a secret together. “Now _ that _ is a Fereldan tradition I could get behind.”

Alistair smiled gently to himself as they both turned back towards the woods stretching out in quiet, blanketed frigidity. Sleeping in when it was cold outside, snuggling down into the warmth of hay and layered woolen quilts outside in the loft of the stables after a day of work, his belly full of leftover stew. It was a pleasant memory, ignoring all of the outside conditions that informed it.

“Been a long time since I indulged in a bed day,” Alistair settled on saying, if only to continue the conversation longer than a few sentences. 

“Yes, you are reserved in that respect,” Zevran tutted. "Though, I do not understand why.”

"Meaning?"

"Maybe it is because you lack locks for your tent," the elf drawled. "I am, however, of the mindset that you should be taking advantage of every moment. Private or not."

“Well, I mean... we’re not exactly able to indulge out on the road,” he said, feeling oddly testy about it. "If we had a few days in a city, maybe, but even then..."

_ You want me to be lazy while you pack up my tent for me? _

_ Let me have a lie-in, then talk about me behind my back? _

Zevran shrugged, holding his hands up as if saying that he had meant no harm. Alistair noted the glimmer of mischief, but did not call him on it.

“I am only saying, my friend, it is not good to deny yourself such a past-time for the sake of some outdated propriety.”

"Politeness," Alistair corrected. "It's not polite to assume others will be okay with such things."

_ If he thinks this is some roundabout way to get me to carry his pack while he sleeps in- _

"Oh, is that what they call it," Zevran answered dryly. “And what does our other Grey Warden think about the lack of 'bed days', hmm?”

Alistair quirked an eyebrow, turning towards the elf at his side in dull shock, but Zevran was already pressing on.

“One would think that, given the time and ample quiet, paired with the cold, you would have made a more deliberate move on the lady." He glanced over with what looked like a challenging glare. "Or maybe you lack the initiative? Hiding under, what did you call it? Politeness?”

“Woah, just, hold on,” Alistair stepped back in the snow, their words no more than a breathy back and forth. “What?”

"Must I spell it out for you?"

"I wish you wouldn't-"

"Have you, eh... _consummated_ the relationship? That is the word, yes?"

"No!"

His words were a hiss that cut through the quiet, and seemingly stopped Zevran short. The elf’s eyes hooded, growing bored, as if he knew what Alistair was about to say and was not looking forward to it.

_ Well. For once that makes two of us. _

Yet it was a compulsion. Alistair couldn’t help it. The words tumbled out, clumsy and defensive, before he could think better of them. Or of complete sentences, for that matter.

“For your information, I wasn't... I was just... before, I thought we weretalking about sleeping. Not anything about _consummating_.”

"Ah." The Antivan clicked his tongue against his teeth. Just like that, his quiet tone had shot back firmly into the jovial and careless pitch that Alistair recognized. "Then I have misunderstood."

“Wh-wait, why did you think I would talk about that with you?”

“You wound me, ser." Zevran sounded as if this was intensely amusing, but Alistair wasn't laughing. "Do not dismiss the conversation. Perhaps I could teach you a thing or two you'd find useful."

Alistair swallowed audibly, the twisting in his gut some dark combination of embarrassment, offense, and -oddly enough- dread.

Zevran sighed dramatically.

"I will stop offering my services, then. It is something you obviously are not comfortable discussing in the moment.” He turned back to the snow and the puff of cloud before him indicated another, albeit noiseless, sigh. “You have that in common with your fellow Warden, it seems.”

There it was again, a very distinct, unfriendly feeling directed pointedly at Zevran. It was sharp in his guts, unpleasant, and Alistair was surprised at how strong a thump it made inside of him. As if he had actively been punched right in the sternum. Very rarely did he feel anything so viscerally. It made him feel a bit ill, to be quite honest.

“If you’ve tried to talk to her about what I _ think _ you have, then I'll-”

"Then you'll what, Warden?"

Their hushed conversation was interrupted by the snap of a tent flap, and then a telltale shiver. Alistair tried to ignore the rush of strange emotion that overcame him when he noted that Zevran turned as well in order to rush back towards Eilwyn at the entrance of the tent.

“Good morning,” Alistair said, so intent on speaking first that his words came out breathless and a bit louder than he’d intended.

If Eilwyn noticed, she didn’t make a point of it. Instead, she looked up at him with a glowing, if not groggy, smile.

“Hello you.”

He felt it pour over him, the telltale relaxation, the comfort she brought him so easily.

_ When she smiles at me, I know I’m not alone. _

She reached out, taking his offered arm, but instead of continuing a conversation with him she turned to the elf.

“Kept him out of snowdrifts, did you?” she murmured, closing the tent flap with the hand not linked through Alistair’s elbow.

For a moment, Alistair thought he must’ve misunderstood. But then there was a rich chuckle from Zevran, an answered giggle from the woman on his arm, and he felt significantly small. As if he’d been deliberately left out of a joke at his expense.

“For now,” Zevran answered, and even as he tightened his cloak about his person as he prepared to leave, Alistair got the distinct impression that the man wanted to stay.

“Glad you two were looking out for me,” Alistair said, the words flatter than he’d wanted them to. The effect was less inclusive banter, more whiny younger brother.

_ Attractive. Real attractive. _

He glanced away, pretending to examine a tree far on the outskirts. Anything to look away from the smug elf lingering before them. As if he could read Alistair's thoughts and found them to be just as foolish and Alistair felt.

_ Just leave already. _

Such thoughts were unbecoming, and yet he couldn’t stop them from bubbling up. Ugh, what did that mean? Was he becoming a curr? Just being childish? Was this brutish behavior? A part of him even wondered if it was justified, to want to have Zevran as far from Eilwyn as physically possible. At least while Alistair himself was in earshot. Was that too much to ask?

“Oh, come now, Alistair." Her voice was groggy with sleep, so cute as it called his attention. "You’re telling me you don’t find the snow soft and enticing?” Eilwyn asked, leaning harder onto his arm as she did.

Alistair glanced down at her, at the way her cheeks and the tip of her nose were growing a peachy pink in the cold, early morning air. Despite the gnawing discomfort nestled in his innards, Alistair couldn’t help but smile. He opened his mouth to comment on how much Fereldan winters seemed to suit her, despite her lack of appropriate gear, but he was beaten to the punch.

“I presume the snow is not what he finds most enticing here,” Zevran chimed in quietly.

Strange.

It was a true statement, but when it came from the elf, it somehow meant significantly less. As if someone had passed a plate of delicious food, but licked the fork you were to eat it with.

Alistair cleared his throat and brought his eyes to Zevran’s. He wanted to look away, knew in some small space in his heart that it would be more polite in the long run, but he also knew he was bigger and stronger than the elf. He could look if he wanted to. Maker damn him, Alistair could look twice as tensely as Zevran could, he had very good eyesight and if he squared up the bulk of his shoulders just right, Alistair was sure he could also-

_ Wait. What does it matter if he sees that I'm bigger than him? _

_ You think having more meat makes you more appealing? _

_ You’re dumber than you look if you think- _

Alistair stopped the voice in his mind, as it was beginning to sound alarmingly like a hodge-podge combination of Isolde and Morrigan. A thought that made him shudder.

And yet, even though he was trying his best to quiet his thoughts, he found he was still staring the elf down.

To the elf’s credit, he looked more bored than anything, and after but a brief moment of awkwardness Zevran was the one to break their eye contact.

“Fair enough, little dove,” he said to Eilwyn. Alistair realized belatedly she must have said something in regards to Zevran’s underhanded flirtation. “I will be a good little assassin, then, and take my leave.”

_ Damn. _

_ Wonder what it was that I just missed. _

“Don’t ruin those before they’re broken in,” she answered.

“Me? Ruin a gift such as this? From a friend such as you?" He smirked, and even Alistair had to admit that the man was knee-weakeningly charismatic when he wanted to be. With a voice that dripped with playful promise, the moment was sealed. "Never.”

The elf strode off, sticking close to the run of the ridge so as to lessen the snow he had to trudge through. Off to do some underhanded shadowy nonsense-or-other.

That wasn't really fair, though. Zevran had been instrumental in making sure that the pathway into the werewolf den back in the Brecilian had been moderately painless.

Although, he _did_ conveniently situate himself at the back of the party when Alistair tromped through the bear trap that one time.

But had that really been Zevran's fault to begin with, if Alistair had taken the lead? He'd told Eilwyn not to blame the elf, so why should he hold onto bitterness? The scar along his shin was a painful enough reminder of his run-in with necrotic anti-werewolf weaponry.

However, just looking at Zevran had Alistair's shoulders tensing. The man didn't even have trouble with the snow after never having experienced it! It hardly looked like he was even trudging through it; he was so light that he could traipse across the curve of fresh powder with ease. Alistair clenched his jaw, thinking to how far he sank, how tired he got. Maker, how much he sweat when he was the trailblazer.

_Again, why did you think meat was such a good thing?_

Shame coursed hot through him, bringing unwelcome steam to his neck, and he vowed not to undress tonight. Not when Eilwyn was sleeping right next to him in the communal tent. Never before had Alistair so starkly been reminded that he hadn’t showered in about a week. Well, by his own mind anyway. Wynne never stopped reminding him.

Eilwyn made a noise. A little shiver, a _ brr _ to his right, a vibration of her lips as she exhaled. It took a few blinks for Alistair to get a bead on the hint, and when he turned to Eilwyn she was adjusting her cloak tighter about her shoulders.

_ Thinner than she needs. _

_ She… _

_ I wonder if she’d accept… _

Stepping hesitantly forward, Alistair lifted a corner of his cloak as an offering. In a move that still surprised him no matter how many times she did it, Eilwyn seemed immediately drawn into his embrace. It was as if she didn’t even give it a second thought. She smiled up from the crook of his arm, a small expression he doubted was meant to escape, and then snuggled down tight against his side. Just like she always managed to do, Eilwyn banished the doubts he had struggled with by merely existing. The calm she radiated blanketed him effortlessly. She let out a sigh in what he took for gratitude as he draped his cloak about her frame, and Alistair fought for the self-control not to ruin the moment.

“So,” Alistair asked, and even as the words escaped his lips he could feel them grow brittle as frost. "What gift was he talking about?"

He couldn’t feel her shift at all, which was a good sign, but he immediately regretted the phrasing of the question. It was none of his business. He didn’t normally press her about stuff like that, either, it was just a part of how she did things.

Eilwyn gave things almost as freely as she smiled. Alistair had seen it even back when he’d first met her in Ostagar, when she’d frantically begged the group of new recruits to slow down so that she could search for a flower underneath of fallen logs. Even though she’d squeaked at the grit and grossness of the bog around her, she’d wriggled her fingers around branches and blood to get to the white petals that would eventually save McWhistle.

She’d gifted Leliana with a flower the other day, too, come to think of it; passing the fragile fragrant thing by the fireside, its petals frosted over to the point where Eilwyn had looked close to tearing up. As if she thought she’d ruined it by exposing it to the winter air outside the Brecilian. Dismayed, Eilwyn had muttered something about having carefully kept it, but Leliana hadn’t even noticed. The group’s minstrel had broken down, hugged her tightly, and even rewarded her with a song she’d been practicing softly in the small hours of the evening.

In fact, Leliana had been so overcome that she had sung to the entire camp.

It had been haunting, beautiful, and entirely in response to Eilwyn’s ability to draw out some strange sense of connection within peoples’ hearts. Eilwyn didn’t save her energy for only precious items, either. It was uncanny, the amount of space she found in her bags for tokens of affection. She bartered with merchants over wine for Wynne, gathered little golden shiny things for Morrigan-

_ Squawking magpie that she is. _

Eilwyn was even on a very protective mission to reclaim Sten’s sword for him. It was one of the pieces that would convince her to return to the docks of Calenhad, something Alistair knew she wasn’t wont to do. It was the next likely place his sword would be, and it seemed to soothe her to know she’d have a gift at the end of the trip.

Not that he’d suggest it. She had to come to these things on her own. Her grieving process, her homesickness, was one thing he never wanted to overstep. She'd never overstepped with his, after all. And, when allowed to move through her feelings at her own pace, she came out of it happier for having taken her time.

_ Gifts are as par for the course as her unexpected optimism. _

_ So why do I feel so different when she gives a gift to Zevran? _

_ Quick. Before she answers, take it back. _

Alistair's tongue moved mere seconds after his question, his inner musings taking far less time in the real world than he felt they had.

“Eila, I’m-”

“I found Zev some gloves.”

She'd interrupted him. She'd stopped what he was going to say with an aloofness to her tone and the barest of answers to his question.

A twinge stuck between his ribs, pinging momentarily back and forth like a second heartbeat. Alistair, thick though he sometimes felt, was clever enough to realize he’d made a misstep. But then how to rectify it?

Eilwyn shrugged beneath his arm, which he realized had grown stiff, and added, “I figured he might be homesick, and in need of better gear for the winter. Two birds, right?”

Her voice had gotten smaller, and Alistair wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep her reasoning from the earshot of the assassin who’d only just slunk off… or if she was embarrassed that Alistair had pried.

“I see,” he answered, unsure if the puff of breathy words reached her ears. “And, uh… what of your gear, precious?”

The namesake slipped out. It was one he hadn’t tested before, one he wasn’t sure he liked, and his chest swelled when she gave a nervous giggle.

“Precious, huh?”

“Well, you are.”

She smiled wider, her lashes falling against her cheeks, the cold casting a rosy blush across her beige skin.

_ Maker, but you're a lucky man. _

They began to walk, though Alistair couldn’t say whose feet moved first. They wandered in the opposite direction than the one Zevran had headed in, and around the backside of the tent to listen out for darkspawn. As he led her through the knee-deep snow that had accumulated on the windward side of their encampment, Alistair mulled over the question the Antivan had posed prior.

_ “As a Fereldan, do you ever get used to such a view?” _

The scenery surrounding them was dead, no doubt about it. It was less appealing to him than the heady richness that accompanied summertime. There was a shocking lack of color no matter where they looked, and his mind felt dulled and grouchy from the lack of natural light. He could tell he was tired, deep within his bones.

And yet, when the moonlight touched and trailed its glittery fingertips across the shimmery, iced-over coating on the freshly fallen snow, even Alistair had to admit that it was something one never got entirely used to. It was magic, different than the magic that suffused a mage’s hands, different than the runes carved into wards hung on the trees about their camp.

_ This is wild. _

_ Wintry, and wild. _

_ This is my country. _

_ I could never get used to it. _

Unconsciously, his arm must have tightened about Eilwyn’s shoulders, because she sighed happily and let her head fall lightly against his chest. Her arm wove its way about the back of his waist, pulling him close to her in turn, and their simultaneous exhales mingled in crystalline fog before them.

_ Does Eilwyn feel it too? _

_ Surely that’s one more thing that bonds us, one more thing that’s only ours. _

_ Something he can't have. _

There it was again, that painful searing tightness in his gut that signaled he was thinking something he shouldn’t. Guilt, and somehow deeper than merely that. Rather than indulge in his introspection, something he was decidedly not adept at stopping once he’d started it, Alistair pressed a kiss to the part in Eilwyn’s braid.

Winter muted smells, something that Wynne was exceedingly vocal about being grateful for and that Morrigan outwardly cursed when they were scouting. Yet somehow, Eilwyn managed to retain the small parts that built her as a whole in the smells she surrounded herself with. The oils she used on her skin to keep her hands from cracking in brittle dryness, the powders she brushed through her curls at night, the herbs she folded lovingly in between their pillowcases when she was in charge of rolling out the beds-

“Something on your mind?” she asked, her voice startling Alistair out of his reverie.

Clearing his throat, he stifled the strange urge to laugh. He realize his lips were still pressed chastely against the top of her head. His nose was cold, as if he’d caught a snowflake on the tip of it. But the rest of his face felt all too warm.

_ If she only knew. _

“Just… thinking about the snow.”

“Oh, don't tell me!" Her voice was quick and eager, as if they were sharing a desperate little secret before they were reprimanded for getting distracted. "You want to jump in it, too?” 

“What?”

“I’ve never seen it piled this high,” she said, breathless. She sounded like she was smiling, but Alistair didn’t want to pull away from her to find out if she was or not. “From the tower, I could see it when it stormed. We’d hear it whistle through the libraries especially, I think it was because of the aeration vents put in place to keep the books from mildewing. It made the libraries terribly drafty, but you could positively smell the snow just piling up outside the tower.” She seemed to pull herself together. Eilwyn waved her hand beneath her cloak, a dismissive gesture that Alistair only figured she was making because he knew her well enough to guess. "I know it wouldn't be fun to dry off afterwards, or shake myself off, but... oh, just look how perfect it is."

_Yes. Perfect._

“I love it when it gets like this, all pillowy and glistening,” Alistair offered. “Except when we used to have to shovel it out of the training areas, back at the Chantry. It got a bit tiresome after a few months of doing that every day.”

“I can imagine,” she replied happily, sounding as if she was grateful he'd agreed. “When we had excursions out to the docks, sometimes the lakefront would freeze over. We could put our palms down to the ice-” Alistair very vaguely felt her flex her fingers so that they splayed open along his waist. “Some of us, the ones drawn to the elements, could feel the power of the cold, feel our mana build off of the intense pressure. We took turns practicing channeling it whenever we could. Under strict supervision of course.”

“I bet you were the best at it.”

“Oh hardly,” she laughed. “I mainly froze pinecones into these little crystalline ornaments. The children and I would hang them for the Wintersend feasts.”

Alistair smiled at the image of Eilwyn helping to decorate a tree. Would it have been by the entrance? Outside in the courtyard?

“Did you ever go ice skating?” he murmured. Not for the first time, he imagined they would have been fast friends had they met when they were younger.

She made a little noise, skeptical and amused. When Alistair didn’t say anything further, she turned to look at him with flinted eyes. It took only a minute of scrutiny for her eyes to grow wide and intrigued.

“Oh,” she breathed. “You’re… being serious.”

“Why ever would you think I’m joking?”

“Because it doesn’t sound like a real thing!”

“You thought I made up ice skating?” Alistair chuckled.

“Well, yes,” Eilwyn said, her mouth quirking as if she was trying to hide a smile of her own. “How would one go about skating on ice? Just put on slippery shoes?”

“You aren’t far off. The shoes you need to do it have a blade tied to the bottom so that you can glide across the surface. I only tried it once or twice when I was rather little, before I was sent to the Chantry.” Alistair softened his tone. “We’re going to be by Calenhad in a few days. If the lake is frozen-”

“Oh, no, that's alright. I don’t want to stay longer than we need there,” Eilwyn evaded, and Alistair cut himself off short.

His words soured against his tongue, and he bit his lower lip to try to find a different train of thought. Find something else to focus on, he reasoned, and he wouldn’t blurt something unnecessary like that _ gift _ comment.

In his silence, Eilwyn strangely didn’t offer anything else up. In fact, she turned her face away, staring out over the snowdrifts. Normally she would apologize, or soothe, or deflect. But in this moment, with her statement very clearly laid out, she seemed to tense up and he was left with no clue and only the distressingly beautiful view of her profile.

_ Is she still nervous about returning? _

“We don’t have to go to the tower just because we’re nearby,” Alistair said gently.

“I know that.”

“Brother Genitivi was last seen at the inn, so we-”

“I know,” she cut him off, her tone clipped.

Her voice was the closest to annoyed as it had ever been with him, and he wasn’t sure how they’d gotten to this point.

_ Can we go back to where she was talking about drafty libraries? _

He was about to voice that wish aloud when she gave a little sigh.

“Do you…” she swallowed audibly, then continued, “do you remember when we last stopped by Calenhad?”

Alistair fumbled over his words, nodded, then realized she wasn’t looking at him and couldn’t see that.

“You mean after we left Kinloch? When things were settling down?”

Eilwyn nodded, and he held her closer. Miraculously, her arm tightened in turn about him, and she hugged him back.

“Yes." She cleared her throat. "Do you remember that night?”

“Ah. Well, I remember you did not join in any of our drinking games,” Alistair said, attempting to bring back some levity. Eilwyn rewarded him with a sideways smirk, and he smiled with a sigh. “You had a very rough time of it. You-”

“Climbed into bed with you,” she finished breathlessly.

The air about them changed. Whereas everything had been cold and still just a heartbeat ago, now it carried the faint mist of warmth to it. Alistair thought back to how little washing he’d done, thought about how close Eilwyn was, how heat must make whatever he smelled like twenty times worse because it made her smell twenty times _better_-

Alistair cleared his throat and tried to do what he did best.

“You shouldn’t feel bad,” he deflected lightly. “So did McWhistle, if I recall.”

Eilwyn turned to look him in the face, then, with a look he couldn’t read. Her brow was furrowed and her lip was quirked as if she’d stopped saying something mid-thought.

_ You just. Compared. The love of your life. To a Mabari. _

_ Fix it! _

“But, that's not to say, um... h-he wasn’t...” Alistair cleared his throat, willing himself to breathe and slow down. “Sleeping next to you doesn’t compare. You must know that.”

“Alistair.”

“Yes?”

Eilwyn turned in his arms and stood on her tiptoes in order to brush her lips across his. Her tongue skated shyly out to meet his smile, their mouths moving in tandem receptiveness, their sudden inhales mingling and echoing in the stillness of the winter surrounding them. A part of him, that insidious little voice that had given him such a difficult time tonight, wondered if she was kissing him to shut him up. The majority of him, however, didn't care for the reason, so long as she kept running her hands through his hair the way she was.

When she pulled away, her eyes stayed closed for a long beat.

Alistair waited, his mind vaguely awash with the grey remnants of insecurities he’d indulged in just a moment ago. He watched as Eilwyn’s eyelashes fluttered open and she gave a deep sigh.

“I ask because, well, I have a question,” she whispered. “Could I share your bed again? Only when we're at Calenhad? Please.”

Alistair blinked. For a brief moment, the moon came out from behind the clouds, and afforded him even sharper visual acuity than he already possessed in the dark. Glancing over her, he could tell that Eilwyn’s eyes were dark and guarded, her mouth a thin line of worry. Her hand was at his back, and she looked as if she either wanted to flee or crawl into a hole. Or both.

Slowly, so as not to make her flinch, Alistair brought his hand up to where her tresses were clumsily tucked behind one ear. He let his hand linger, allowed it to drop so that his palm cupped her cheek.

“Why are we so nervous?” he whispered in awe, both to himself and to her. Absurdly, he wanted to giggle. Maybe it was because he didn't think she was going to ask him this again so blatantly. Maybe it was because he wanted to pretend like it wasn't as heavy a question as it was.

Eilwyn didn’t laugh. She must have seen the way his head tilted just slightly, or perhaps she grew tired of skirting around it politely.

“If you let me stay with you at the Princess, I will keep my hands to myself. I know you don't want to go too far.”

His stomach fell twice. First, at the thought of Eilwyn’s dedicated, gentle hands; second, at how he must be making her feel, in all his hesitance and unwillingness.

“Oh.”

_ That… doesn't she understand that it isn't about that? _

Alistair struggled to respond to her. He appreciated the sentiment. It was always nice to feel respected, and Eilwyn never made him feel like a coward or less of a man for taking his time. She’d said she would follow his lead, and she had. Brave girl.

But she’d held onto this. To this thought that it was _she_ who wanted them to go further, that it was _she alone_ who was up at all hours of the night fantasizing about the perfect first time together.

Well, and why shouldn't she feel thusly? Alistair had dissuaded her before, hadn't he? By saying that if they were to sleep side by side in their own room, he wouldn’t be satisfied with stopping. She’d echoed the same. So it was forbidden, just based on his own nervousness, his own discomfort.

_ My own cowardice. _

But hadn't things changed? Hadn't they reached an understanding together, about how it was not the physical act itself that he worried over? In the tent, as he recovered from the potentially fatal damage he'd taken from the werewolf trap he'd stepped in, she'd thrown her leg over his hip and let him touch-

_Everything._

And then a few days ago, she’d snuck after him and joined him on the cliff. Eilwyn had held him, naked, in her arms and he’d-

_ Maker’s breath, I came on her stomach. _

Alistair blushed, his skin too hot and his mind awash with possibilities. At the same time, somehow, he was fine with their forays before, but the thought of spending the night still made him feel like he was going crazy.

Why was the bed itself, the _ night _ itself, so heavy in his heart?

_ Because it would be the wrong bed. _

_ Everything about it would be wrong, if we were to do something now, if we were to do it there, that wouldn’t- _

“Alistair?” she whispered. Concern made her voice a bit wispy, higher in pitch and softer in volume. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything. I can tell it makes you uncomfortable.”

He couldn’t help but feel slightly idiotic. He hated that Zevran's snide little comments from earlier were replaying in his mind.

_Propriety over pleasure._

The elf had made it sound like he'd tried to talk to Eilwyn about such things too. And _he_ wouldn't shy away at the banter if she wished to discuss it. Zevran would not be the one to tell her to wait. To ask her to postpone. To sweat at the mere thought of being so completely joined with another person that they'd ideally become a part of you from that moment on.

_ She has to know I want that. _

_ She has to! _

But the relief at her sudden withdrawal was something he couldn’t ignore. Alistair knew that he wasn’t ready to be back in the bed they’d shared before at the inn. He wasn’t ready to have to ignore the sheerness of her tunic or the soft swell of her hips, close enough to touch. He didn’t want to have to resituate a pillow between them, as he had before, just to maintain their respective dignities.

On top of everything, if she really had such a hard time with even being near Kinloch, he needed to save any physical intimacy for a later date. The idea that their first time could be born of her intense sadness, of her looking to avoid hurting, it just didn’t sit right with him.

_ No. _

_ Better that we find the time later. _

_ With a different bed, one that didn’t already have memories of nightmares and trauma. _

_ Not that our first time together would be trauma! _

_ It just… I would… _

Alistair forced himself to calm, focusing on the woman in front of him instead of the last time they’d been at the Spoiled Princess. He ducked his head down and rested his forehead against hers. 

“You,” he sighed, hoping she would not sense the regret that surely escaped his throat. “You are truly precious, Eila. Thank you for understanding.”

She smiled and closed her eyes, nuzzling against him. She leaned over until her cheek was brushing against his, her lips against his neck just beneath his earlobe.

“I call dibs on McWhistle.”

He chuckled, trying to find the levity in this situation, but he could tell that his laughter sounded choked. Taking a deep breath, he tried to relax. She understood. He wasn’t pushing her away so much as postponing a night so that it would be perfect. as if she could sense the warring sadness in him, or perhaps the even uglier emotion lying beneath that, Eilwyn cuddled against him and brought one hand back to the nape of his neck. She drew him down to her, soothing him, and he held her back just shy of too tight.

“It’s alright to say no, Alistair.” His love fell quiet, and then, as if she was murmuring it to herself more than him, “Truly, it is.”

Alistair didn’t answer. He had the distinct sensation that he had gotten what he wanted and lost it simultaneously, and it had rendered him useless. Vaguely, he wondered if the forest itself had borne witness to his idiotic fumbling. If, with its skeletal branches criss-crossing patterns across the starry heavens, the trees had watched with eyes of glassy green as he foolishly proved Zevran right.

_I don't deserve her._

Trying to ignore the insecure voice in his head, Alistair contented himself with holding Eilwyn tight against himself, all the more eager to put this side of Ferelden far behind them.


End file.
